Four Hundred Texts on Theology (Third Century) 17

46. No one can plead the weakness of the flesh as an excuse when he sins; for the union of our humanity with the divine Logos through the incarnation, has renewed the whole of nature by lifting the curse, and so we have no excuse if our will remains attached to the passions. For the divinity of the Logos, which always dwells by grace in those who believe in Him, withers the rule of sin in the flesh.

If the Word became flesh then the implications are staggering and profound. Jesus shares our nature and we now share his. He offers a depth of healing my imagination cannot plumb. And yet I’ve rarely heard much reflection on the Incarnation in my SBC context. Often it seems that humanity was just something Jesus had to assume in order to die on the Cross and complete some sort of transaction with the Father. Aside from the problem that St. Gregory points out — that we were not held captive by God, this reduces the Incarnation almost to a facade. As St. Maximos points out, though, if Jesus has truly joined his nature to ours and offers us himself — his own power — then we truly have no excuse. We fail because we do not want God, not because we do not have God.